Low Cost, Slow Aid?

The IPSIs, which are either not recognised or barely recognised by the powers that be, mainly raise funds privately and locally. The amounts are not huge but often enough to fund small-scale projects carried out by volunteers. This led to these IPSI activists being considered as “barefoot” developers and “small” operators without much money. The reference to “low cost” aid comes to mind with all the negative connotations found in the criticisms directed at economic operators of the production model. This link is not so simplistic. Low cost is, first of all, a model based on consumer needs, to give it its simplest definition. Each product and service is reappraised to be “dissected” and “stripped” of extra functions, retaining only the essential function to meet the minimum need. In this respect, the low cost may be understood as a return to the original use of the product, one that the producers may have moved away from over time by increasing the extras and accessories. As they are constrained by low tangible means, the IPSIs tend to tighten their belts and simplify their development proposal as much as possible. Naturally, it is more a necessity - that is gradually becoming a virtue - than a ‘strategy’ devised by the IPSIs to “capture a share” of the international aid market from the accredited NGOs. The IPSIs would propose development projects focused on essentials: meeting needs not covered by the State, by the economic system nor by the established aid agenises.

Highlighting the need to put people and their needs back into the reports on cooperation, giving priority to a ‘quality’ approach over abstract indicators and imperious research on efficiency, with which the established international aid organisations would be obsessed, the popular initiators of international solidarity would be similar to the “Slow Life” movements in their various forms (Slow Food, Slow Media, Slow Research, Slow Education, Slow Parenting, Slow Love, etc.). These movements reclaim the right to slow speed in a world in high acceleration in order to find meaning in actions, conviviality in social contacts and quality in goods and services. The “Slow” movements now comprise an eclectic mix of players and highly varied social practices.  However, they have a number of features in common: respect for the rhythm of each moment, refusal of tyranny, the immediate, and the idea of “everything now”, the right to demand, or rather prioritise, quality over quantity and to denounce mass consumerism.

The IPSI, modern actors in the field of international aid?

Indeed a more in-depth study of IPSI activists to confirm this hypothesis would be required to confirm this theory and it is not certain that all the IPSI activists would recognize themselves as being part of “slow” movements. Up to now, the IPSI activists encountered are not particularly distinguished by the development of a critical argument with regard to the society of mass consumerism. The authors will be happy to put forward this theory that a non-negligible number of IPSI activists, while they share the objectives and arguments of the cooperation sector (importance of partnership, appropriation, the search for the strengthening of partners’ skills…) suggest another way of seeing development, that is to say an approach that is not limited to a managerial approach and its tools, which does not aim to have immediate results but rather the establishment of social links that go beyond contractual relationships between aid suppliers and beneficiaries. It is without doubt here that the complementarity and essential contribution of the IPSIs to Belgian Cooperation for Development is to be found and leaving aside the  clichés and identifying them as perennial structures animated by actors which give them a sense of modernity.